“Jesus. Not even a tampon. The hell do you do when you get your period?”
“I don’t get a period,” I reply curtly. “Are my soldiers okay?”
Captain Finley frowns and tilts her head. “Yeah, they’re fine. Banged up, but alive. But wait, what do you mean you don’t get a period? I thought only rich folks had access to the fancy birth controls.”
“My uterus was removed.”
“Removed? Wh—” Captain Finley raises her hands in defeat. “Never mind, I don’t want to know the kinds of sick shit your cult does. Anyway, your friends are fine. Everyone has explicit instructions not to fuck with any of you.”
“That is not protocol, as far as I had heard.”
“Oh, right. Big bad rebels slaughtering innocents, bathing the country in their blood.” This is obviously sarcasm, though from the reports I read, not far off. Then again, how accurate are the reports? “Should sound familiar to you.”
“The Order never indiscriminately killed civilians.”
“That sure is a pretty fairy tale, gorgeous. Must be nice to believe you’re a hero and that you know who the monsters are.” She winks at me on the way out. “Sleep tight.”
Guards come and go.I feign sleep for most of it but never fully succumb. Around sunset, the same guard from dusk returns. He glares at me the whole time, so he’ll be the easiest to manipulate. Men are so bad at controlling their emotions; it wasone of the reasons Theia refused to promote many of them. Too unpredictable in the field, too leashed to their hormones. This man is, unfortunately, proving her correct.
“When am I getting out of here?” I say, loud and petulant. “I’m sick of this.”
“Shut up, prisoner.”
“I want to speak to someone that matters. I’m tired of seeing you lackeys coming in and out of here. I swear, you’re all starting to look the same. Which one are you? Harry? Larry? Gary?”
The soldier grips his rifle tightly. “I said, shut up.”
“Or what?” I chuckle. “You can’t touch me. I’m a prisoner and I still rank higher than you. What a loser.”
There we go. The soldier storms over to me, trembling in unspent rage. Having slipped the restraints almost immediately upon waking, I easily slide my arm out and nab him by the neck. My fingers press on his arteries, and he falls to his knees in a panic. He paws at my hand but it’s too late. Another couple of seconds and he’s out cold, slumped to the ground like a corpse.
Quietly, I get out of my bed and reach down to pluck the soldier’s sidearm. They didn’t re-dress me, so I’m conspicuous in my United Regions uniform. A few steps into the hallway make it obvious this place used to be a school. A college, maybe, or an Upperclass high school. Rows of navy lockers line each side, broken up by wooden doors with square window panes. I peek into many as I pass, but find most of them are dark. Hesitantly I turn a corner and finally see light from underneath a doorway.
I duck into another doorway as a soldier emerges from that room and floods the hallway with garish white light. The soldier waits approximately thirty seconds before turning on their heel and advancing down the hallway toward me. I don’t think I’ll have a second bout of success knocking out a full-grown adult. I’ll be lucky if they pass without me coughing up smoke from the train. The door I’m next to is locked, because why wouldn’t it be,so I make myself as flat as possible against the short wall and hold my breath. I am a shadow. I am dust on the floor.
He walks by me.
Once he’s fully turned the other corner, I slink out of hiding and toward the door. Up on my toes, I do my best to see who is in the room. I spot the disheveled blond hair of Private Frank, and then suddenly a presence behind me makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
“Hello again.”
Whipping around, I raise my gun only to find my hand gripped tightly in someone else’s. My gun—well,thegun—is squeezed from my hand, and as it drops, she catches it in her own.
Dreaming, dreaming. I must be dreaming. I’m still on the train, or in her room, hallucinating. But it’s too real. The color of her hair, the wet shine of her eyes, the smell of her. It’s real, and my existence cannot handle it.
I drop to my knees, my hand still held aloft in hers. I have lost the ability to do everything except respond in the only way I know how.
“Hello yourself.”
22
Lucy stares down at me. It’s her. It must be. I’ve never been one to disbelieve my own senses, but I use the silence to be sure. She lets go of my hand and I lose my balance, palms slapping against the tile. In front of me are two boots, gleaming black in the light from behind me. Slowly I look upward and take in all of her. Black pants tucked into black boots, a black shirt cinched with a black belt. A shadow in shadows.
“Taylor.”
My name from her lips is the chiming of bells. It is the horns of heaven. It’s some other literary cliché. It’s all of them, maybe. It bids me to look upward but I cannot. If this is a dream, her eyes will break the fantasy. Her eyes never have the right complexity, depth, and warmth in my dreams and nightmares.
“Stand up.”
